


the unimaginable

by LucilleBarker



Category: Little Women (2019), Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: F/M, Family, Grief/Mourning, Marriage, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22147021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucilleBarker/pseuds/LucilleBarker
Summary: There is something about death that unites a family, and yet there is more distance than even state lines can create.Marmee navigates through the painful grief of losing Beth.
Relationships: Margaret “Marmee” March/Robert March
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	the unimaginable

**Author's Note:**

> As I was watching the 2019 movie, I was so focused on Marmee and Father March during the scenes after Beth’s offscreen death. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about “It’s Quiet Uptown” from Hamilton.
> 
> I was inspired to write this after reading this portion from the screenplay: 
> 
> “Jo looks at Marmee, and her mother, for the first time in Jo’s life, breaks. Jo becomes the parent at that moment, comforting her mother, who is trapped in the unimaginable pain of losing a child.”

There is something about death that unites a family, and yet there is more distance than even state lines can create.

When Marmee heard about the baby that was taken from Mrs. Hummel, she wept for hours on end. She wept because no one should know the pain of losing a child. She wept because the same scarlet fever that took the baby almost took her Beth. She wept because of the guilt she felt that Beth survived and not the baby. She wept because of the relief she felt that God would not take either her husband and daughter.

Then years later, God decided that He would take her Beth after all.

The funeral took place on a day that was too beautiful. The fact that the sun was shining so brightly on the day she was burying her daughter caused an irrational rage to roil inside of Marmee. S _he should be sitting under a tree with flowers in her hair_ , she thought. _She should be sitting at her piano, playing notes in a minor key that created music equally solemn and joyful._

_She should be alive._

Marmee watched as each member of her family mourned in their own way. Hannah busied herself with work, cooking and cleaning as if there weren’t tears streaming down her face. Meg took her comfort in John and their children, holding each other as tight as they could. Jo wandered the woods and the attic upstairs, lost for the first time despite a lifetime of being so sure of her path.

And then there was her husband. Father March would go through his day as usual, but did not utter a syllable or make a noise. Her Robert—a teacher, a minister, a man who loved language and expressing himself with the spoken word. Out of the window, she would see him sitting in the garden and staring out as autumn leaves littered the ground.

Marmee felt a twisted yearning for the days after he returned home from the war, and she would have to wake him up from the nightmares that made him toss and turn. She had held him, kissed his forehead that was beaded with sweat.

“Talk to me,” she insisted. “Tell me what happened.”

“It is not something you want to hear,” Robert told her. “This is a grief that cannot be shared.”

“Well,” she said, stroking his stubbled cheek, “even if it can’t be shared, I don’t think it should hide in shadow.”

Marmee listened to him talk of good men who found God on the battlefield, good men who lost their faith, good men that lost their lives. He had been right in a way—it was a grief that she could not understand or imagine as someone who had never been near it. But she let him speak, wrung out all of the pain in him with all the comfort she could offer. They would fall asleep in each other’s arms, safe from anything that would dare separate them again.

And yet it wasn’t a war that tore them apart, but the unimaginable reality of watching a child die. Her Beth has been the quietest of her babies, crying only when hungry or in absolute need of assistance. As she grew, she developed an introspective nature that balanced the wonderful, overblown dramatics provided by her sisters.

Her temper was the Devil on her shoulder, calling her to unleash it and spit fire and chaos at anyone. Marmee has never felt a stronger pull to it than the morning she climbed the stairs to the attic, black skirts brushing against each step. And the first thing she saw was Jo packing away Beth’s precious dolls and music. _How dare you?_ she wanted to snap. _Don’t you dare put her things away without me. I am her mother, not you!_

The vitriol that came so naturally to her made her stomach turn, and her eyes stung with tears that were made of sorrow and shame. She was thankful Amy and Aunt March were still making their way from Europe, safe from this temptation to explode.

She fought it. She sat down on the top step and appealed to her daughter, “You are much too lonely here, Jo. Wouldn’t you like to go back to New York?”

Jo slowly unraveled in front of her, declaring she had ruined friendships, ruined everything. That maybe she should say ‘yes’ if Laurie decided to propose again. That she cared more to be loved and wanted to be loved.

Marmee shook her head, smiled sadly for her poor girl. “That is not the same as loving,” she corrected softly.

A mother watched as her daughter allowed herself to finally break open. “Women have minds and souls as well as hearts,” Jo avowed, tears giving her blue eyes the shine of melting ice crystals. “Ambition and talent as well as beauty, and I’m sick of being told that love is all a woman is fit for. But… I am so lonely.”

Marmee sat on the step, let Jo have her sorrow and pain. She did not get up and wrap her arms around her child. Jo was never one that invited such embraces either—she was much like her Aunt March in that she did not enjoy being kissed or coddled for the sake of kissing or coddling. If Jo wanted that sort of affection, she would instigate it herself.

Her only exception to her rules of affection was Beth.

Jo asked for time to herself, wiping furiously at her tears and apologizing for being so “weak.” Marmee descended the stairs and followed the spiritual pull she had to the garden. There Robert sat on a bench, staring out. For days, she thought he had been observing the world, trying to observe the changes that had been made. Upon closer inspection, Marmee noticed how unfocused his gaze was. He was staring at nothing. He was as lost as anybody else.

“May I join you?” Her voice called him out of the world he had trapped himself in. Robert looked up at her, surprise widening his eyes. Marmee didn’t wait for his approval. She rearranged the skirts of her mourning dress and sat beside him.

Marmee let the quiet between herself and Robert sit. She could see why one could spend hours on end here, allowing the sun to burn your skin and listening to how your breath harmonizes with the sounds of nature. From a distance, they probably looked like two black shadows enjoying the hustle and bustle of a colorful world that refused to stop for anything. Celebrations, death, births—whatever it was, life could not stop for anything or anybody.

At last, she spoke.

“Jo’s in the attic,” she informed him. “She was putting away Beth’s things. And I almost screamed at her because I was convinced her pain couldn’t compare to mine. I have never felt more ashamed and embarrassed than the moment she told me—showed me—how lonely she is. She inherited so much of my anger… it only made sense that Beth could be the only one to guide her out of her own wildfire. God knows she guided me out of mine.”

Marmee paused, swallowing the lump in her throat. “And I think that patience,” she continued, fighting the sadness she felt escaping her, “I think that Beth took that from you.”

There was no stopping the flood of sorrow that spilled out of Marmee. She pressed one hand against her mouth, stifling the cries that had become common since her sweet girl rested in her arms for the last time. Robert turned his face away from her, and Marmee recalled how he had held her the night Beth died. How he said nothing as she wailed and screamed and demanded to know what God thought He could be good and steal her children away. He simply embraced her, comforted her.

Marmee reached for his hand and gripped it tightly in hers. Perhaps this would tether him to the earth forever. And if not forever, she would insist that she go first.

Robert spent a few moments looking away from her. But she felt him twist his wrist just so… She relaxed her hold just enough for him to turn his hand over and interlace their fingers. Marmee looked from their entwined hands to her husband’s face. He shook his head, eyes glassy. _Like melting ice crystals_ , she noticed.

“I-I can’t find the words,” Robert stumbled.

“Try,” Marmee begged. “Robert, this is the one grief we share. And I refuse to be alone in it.”

They took turns. Marmee recounted her first moments holding Beth after she was born. Robert reminisced about a night when young Beth could not sleep, and spent a few hours together reading in comfortable silence before he carried his slumbering girl back to bed. Marmee admitted to her jealousy of the relationship between her daughters, the kind of kinship she never had with her own family. Robert admitted to his jealousy of Mr. Laurence, a kind man who provided his girls with wealth where he could not.

And so they went. Finding moments that had made them laugh and cry as they remembered their daughter. The two of them sat together in the garden, unaware of time until Hannah had to come outside and usher them in for dinner.

Later that night, Marmee and Robert laid in their bed. Neither had taken off their mourning clothes yet, and Marmee’s skirts took up most of the space. Still, Marmee’s head rested against Robert’s chest as he ran his fingers through the ends of her hair. The candlelight nearby provided a soft glow that warmed her spirit in a way that it could not warm her body.

Robert pressed a kiss to the top of Marmee’s head. He had no words left for today. That was fine—neither did she. For now, the quiet could have its moment while husband and wife underwent the unimaginable.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading. Well... “enjoyed” may be the wrong term. I hope you liked it, and didn’t cry as much reading it as I did writing it.


End file.
